Ukraine Given Names Database

The Late Professor G. L. Esterson
Ra'anana, Israel

SEARCHING THE UKRAINE GIVEN NAMES DATA BASE

THE UKRAINE GIVEN NAMES DATA BASE (GNDB): A searchable
database has been set up for the Jewish given names used in Ukraine
during 1795-1925, and links are made in each record to the new local
vernacular names adopted in this same time period in nine foreign
countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Palestine,
South Africa, UK, US) to which Ukrainian Jews immigrated. Thus,
this database includes the Hebrew, Yiddish, and local & other-European-country
secular names used in Ukraine, as well as the new vernacular names
used in foreign countries.

This database of linked Ukrainian and
foreign-country given names was derived from Hilchot Gitin books,
archival Ukrainian records, given names books, non-European gravestone
readings, contributions from researchers, and other sources. This
database allows genealogists to define all of the Jewish and vernacular
names which an ancestor may have used in Europe and in his new
country of immigration.

Each record in the Ukraine data base has one field
containing a Primary given name (like Yehuda Leyb) which
was recognized by Jews as the Legal Jewish Name for recording
the names of women and men in Jewish legal documents (get, ketuva,
and other Jewish contracts), and for calling a man to the Torah
for an aliya. Other fields in the record contain all the Yiddish
and secular names
which were commonly linked to the Primary name in Ukraine; some
of these names were major names (like the Yiddish name Yehuda),
while others were simply names of endearment (like Yiddish name
Yidele), diminutives (like Yudya), or others. Still other fields
contain all the foreign vernacular names a Ukrainian emigrant
might have adopted in one of the nine foreign countries to which
he migrated.

Each name field contains between 0 and 35 given
names, depending on the Ukrainian and foreign name popularity
and usage. Since normal onomastic studies (the origin and history
of given names) would not lead to the correct structure of
our databases as described above, we used for this purpose instead
the rabbinic sources known as Hilchot Gitin -- Jewish law books
written by expert, prominent rabbis as guides for the community
rabbis who prepared the Jewish divorce documents, and for synagogue
officials to call men to the Tora for an aliya. In these books,
the Primary name becomes the center around which all the other
names circle.

Here is a table of the current status of the six sequential work phases, updated as the project proceeds; status is given by an index of completion on a scale from 0 to 10. Item 1 is the number of records in the current data base. Individual indexes of completion are also given for the nine foreign countries to which European emigrants
immigrated.

Number of records in current data base

500

Create Basic-Hebrew names data base

10

Enter Hilchot Gitin Hebrew/Yiddish names

1

Enter archival Hebrew/Yiddish/EuroSecular names

1

Enter foreign Hebrew/Yiddish/Vernacular names

0

Standardize Yiddish names

1

Refine records in data base

0

Argentina

1

Australia

0

Brazil

0

Canada

1

Mexico

0

Palestine

0

South Africa

0

United Kingdom

1

United States

1

GEOGRAPHIC REGION OF UKRAINE G.N.D.B.

In general, the region covered by this GNDB is the Ukraine of today.
However, a strip-region (called "Little Russia" by Jews) in
Eastern Ukraine is included in the Lithuanian Yiddish dialect area,
and a second region in Western Ukraine was part of East Galicia.
The East Galicia region is split by a vertical line such that Jews
in the west part of this East Galicia strip used the Polish/Galician
Yiddish dialect, while Jews in the small east part used the Ukraine
Yiddish dialect. You should use a map to understand where these regions
are. Little Russia in East Ukraine may be defined approximately
by a straight line connecting Cernigov (30 40 E, 51 20 N) on the
north border of Ukraine, to Taganrog (39 20 E, 47 20 N) in southeast
Ukraine on the Black Sea. East of this line, the Lithuanian Yiddish
dialect was used, and you should also use the Belarus GNDB (Belarus
also used the Lithuania Yiddish dialect) to search for names. West of the line, this Ukrainian GNDB should be used.

In West Ukraine, the portion
of Ukraine that was in East Galicia may be defined approximately by
a "trapezoid" which extends from the West Ukraine border to an eastern
line running from Brody (25 20 E, 50 10 N) in the north, to Darabani
(26 40 E, 48 20 N) in the south. This trapezoid is divided by a vertical
line running from Brody in the north, to Borsa (24 50 E, 47 50 N) in
the south. The "triangle" east of this vertical line was in the Ukraine
Yiddish dialect area and searches in this region should be made in
this Ukraine GNDB. West of this vertical line (in the Polish Yiddish
dialect area), searches should also be made using the Galicia GNDB.

Searching in the Ukraine GNDB

FIRST-TIME USERS: If you want to avoid confusion and frustration in using the GNDB, read the descriptions of the search options below. Once you understand these guidelines (it's easy!), you can go directly to the Search-Input
Form.

This example shows the fifteen fields in the Lithuania record for the Hebrew name YEHUDA LEYB:

All records contain NAME-ONLY fields (like "Yiddish Names") with all names delimited by the character "/".
There are also two types of TEXT fields: the "Legal/Hebrew Name" field
and the "Origin" fields both containing names delimited by the character "\".

The "Gender" field contains only an "M" or "F" -- no names. Thus, (1)
you can search for a specific name inside name-only and all-text fields
using a "Global TEXT Search", or (2) you can search for a specific
name using "sounds-like" Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex. These two options
also contain aids like logical "AND" and "OR", and the ability to specify
beginning letters for a name (e.g., Yeh* would find Yehuda as well
as Yehudis in Global Text Search).

Global Text Search of ALL Fields does exactly what it says -- it looks for an input search
name as is, wherever it appears, without regard to the delimiters,
and it does this throughout the entire set of fields (name-only
fields and text fields). You can search using the exact spelling of
a name or the first few letters of the name.Global Text Search (option
one) allows the use of logical constructs like AND/OR (DM Soundex does
not). If you use "Alter OR Moshe" or "Moshe OR Alter" with option one in the
Lithuania GNDB, then you will find seven results in both cases -- the
two Alter's, the three Moshe's, and an additional two Moshe's found
in text.

The search engine seeks the two names wherever they may be in the record. D-M Soundex (option
two) searching can be very effective in finding names for which you
do not know the exact spelling (for whatever reason). It will find
all names which SOUND LIKE the name which you enter, because they all
have the same DM-Soundex code. On the one hand, it helps overcome your
lack of knowledge of the "correct" spelling
of the name, or how it might be spelled in the data base using the
GNDB standard. On the other hand, it may find lots of names in which
you are not interested. DM Soundexing sometimes produces two different
codes for one given name.

The only possible modification with DM Soundexing
is the use of square brackets [ ]. For example, in the Lithuania GNDB,
searching on "Moshe" will lead to 29 records retrieved, but using [Mo]she
to search will yield only 16 records -- you are limiting the search
to only those hits which begin with the exact letters "Mo", but which
have the desired DM Soundex code for Moshe. You should experiment with
this scheme and learn its advantages and limitations.

CURRENT LIMITATION
USING D-M SOUNDEX: D-M Soundex does not work right now on the Origins
fields.

Under option one, you can use
an all-inclusive asterisk "*" to represent any letters of the alphabet.
This very useful capability allows you to search exactly for the beginning
of a name in cases where you are not sure how the whole name is spelled. For
example, consider the Yiddish name NOTL, as it is transcribed using
the YIVO standard, but which you think could be Notel or Nottel or
Notell. If you try "Notel", "Nottel", or "Notell" using
option one in the Lithuania GNDB, you will find no hits -- these spellings
do not exist in the data base. But if you try "Not*" using option one,
you will find six hits -- five for the Hebrew name Nasan (for which
Notl is a kinui) and one for the Legal/Hebrew name Note (for which
Notl is a kinui).

Another example: MOSHE. If you try "Moshe" as the
search input using option one in the Lithuania GNDB, you will find
five hits -- three for Moshe including its double names, and two for
Moshe used in the "Origin" field where it is referred to in text. If
you try "Mos*" using option one, you will find the same five
hits. If you try "Mo*" using option one, you will find that the search
engine will not accept your input, stating that you must use at least
three characters in this way.You should experiment with these variations
to learn how they work best.

SUMMARY OF SEARCH GUIDELINES:
For the case where you know one or two Yiddish names (say) and want
to find all the other Yiddish, Hebrew, and European secular names which
were linked to your one or two, the best initial approach is probably
to use option one with the first few letters of the name, along with
the asterisk, e.g., "Not*". However, it might be worthwhile to back
this up with a second trial in which your input is "[Not]l" using
option two (DM Soundex). After trying the last one using the Lithuania
GNDB, you might also have a go at the input "Notl" using
option two (interesting?!)The above case is probably the most popular
use of the GNDBs.

In general, a combination of both search options would work the best and minimize the possibility
of missing names of which you should be aware, but some of these trials
may give you lots of false positives.For the case where you want to
enter an English vernacular name (for US, UK, SA...), say Morris, option one would give twenty
hits for the Lithuania GNDB. However, option two (Soundex) with
input Morris would yield 29 hits -- it finds a number of names of females
which have the same DM Soundex as Morris. In general, for English
vernacular names, option two is NOT a good choice because DM Soundex
was not set up for English names and does not work well with them.
The use of the old NARA Soundex for English (and perhaps other
foreign) names is currently under consideration.

Entering foreign vernacular names is useful when you want to find all of the possible vernacular names
an immigrant might have used, or you are looking for all the Hebrew,
Yiddish, and European secular names from which the vernacular name
might have come -- this could turn out to be a large number of possibilities
because many different European Jewish names were translated into the
same English vernacular foreign name.Searching on foreign names is
probably the second most interesting use of the GNDBs. You undoubtedly
will work out alternative approaches which will work for you and your
own special needs.For a detailed, field-by-field description of the
fields' contents, see the Description
of the Databases.

GIVEN NAME SEARCH INPUT FORM

This search input form allows
you to accomplish ONLY one of two different search directions
(don't try to fill out both red and blue data):

1. European-to-Foreign: Enter
your ancestor's given name for his European country
of origin, and obtain all his possible European Hebrew, Yiddish, & Secular
names, plus the foreign-country vernacular names he might have adopted.

2. Foreign-to-European: Enter
your ancestor's vernacular given name for his foreign-country of immigration, and obtain all the
possible foreign-country vernacular given names he might have adopted,
plus the European given names he might have had in his European country
of origin.

SUMMARY OF SEARCH OPTIONS

Try out these search options yourself until you feel confident that you can use them for your own
searches, and then use them as guidelines for setting up your own searches.

A list of the SOURCES used
to obtain the given names data for the Ukraine GNDB can be found here.

All About Given Names & the Databases

This website includes several
articles which you will want to read, in order to learn more about
the GNDBs and how they were developed, and in order to broaden your
background in the topic of Jewish given names, Judaism, and Jewish
history. Come back to this section often.